The present invention is directed to a post print finishing device in which a spiral binding is used to bind a printed documented.
Current devices and methods for printing and binding media sheets involve printing the desired document on a plurality of media sheets, assembling the media sheets into a stack, and separately stapling, clamping, gluing and/or sewing the stack. In addition to imaging material used to print the document, each of these binding methods requires separate binding materials, increasing the cost and complexity of binding. Techniques for binding media sheets using imaging material are known in the art. These techniques generally involve applying imaging material such as toner to defined binding regions on multiple sheets, assembling the media sheets into a stack, and reactivating the imaging material, causing the media sheets to adhere to one another.
In addition, certain binding applications are prepared so that the spine of the binding is done in a loose manner that allows the stack to be opened to a flat position. Typically, spiral bound stacks are desirable to achieve this result. However, heretofore there has been no spiral binder device for use in the post print finishing stage of binding a stack of sheets with a desirable spiral binder.
Accordingly, what is needed is a post print finishing device that can perform spiral binding on a stack of sheets.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a post print finishing device that incorporates a spiral binder into the post print handling and finishing functions. In one exemplary embodiment of the invention, the finishing device includes an accumulator module and a binder module. The binder module binds sheets together utilizing a metal piece that serves as the binder and bending the metal so as to function as a spiral binder. The accumulator module stacks the sheets, presents the sheets to the binder for binding and then discharges the bound stack to the output bin. An automated method of binding the stack with a spiral binding is also disclosed.